Passerby: A Psychological Thriller Read online

  I slide my phone into my back pocket again and open the closet. I could stuff them in there. Maybe. Unfortunately, old houses have small closets, and it would take quite a bit of effort to make them fit. And perhaps a few broken bones.

  For a second, I think I might actually be losing it and I wonder if this is what they mean by the term psychotic break. I consider calling someone. But who? What kind of friend do you call to get you out of a jam like this?

  Problem is, I know exactly what kind of friend.

  But I won’t go there. I can’t go there.

  Bad things happen when I go there.

  Things worse than this.

  You wouldn’t think anything could be worse than this.

  But again, you wouldn’t understand.

  I hope you’re not offended. I’m not saying you're stupid or anything.

  It’s not you.

  Most people wouldn’t understand.

  Probably not even these two, I tell myself, and then I don’t know why I do it, but I lean down, pull back the covers, and really take them in. The waxy skin, the bloated faces, or what’s left of them anyway, the transfixed eyes. You might think they look peaceful, but you would be wrong. This is the stuff nightmares are made of. And I see many in my future.

  My phone dings. The sound startles me, and I practically leap into the bed with them. My knee bumps the mattress, and a hand flops over the side, brushing my bare skin. Every expletive I know floods my mind as I dance back. They’d come pouring out of my mouth, but I’m too afraid to open it. My phone dings again. I stare at the hand and think: this can’t be real. Then I back away and read the text. Where are you? I can’t believe this is happening. Finally.

  He has no idea.

  This is sick, he writes.

  I look around the room. Truly.

  Sick as in a BFD.

  I know what you mean; I text back. He likes it when I’m up on my acronyms. He is not one who likes to explain himself, and he reads minds like it’s his profession.

  It is a big effing deal.

  It’s not every day that you hold an engagement party of this magnitude at your venue, but that is exactly what is happening in precisely twenty-one minutes. The entire town will be here. What a disaster this is going to turn out to be. Looking back, I should have said no. I tried to say no. I did say no.

  It didn’t work. And anyway, as for him being here, it was a favor to make up for that other favor.

  My phone chimes again. Thank God for small favors!

  I shake my head. It appears a favor is what got me into this, and a favor is going to have to be what gets me out.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Ruth

  My hands shake. Cold sweats sweep over me. Perspiration dampens the small of my back, the edges of my hairline, everything. I have to get out of this room.

  The walls feel like they’re closing in on me. It’s hot as hell in here, and it feels like I’m in one of those fun houses at the festival where the floor shifts and the walls are made of mirrors and nothing is as it seems.

  This must be what shock feels like. In every sense of the word. The fear animals must experience right before they’re slaughtered. I will probably live. Not only because I still have the ability to run, but because this isn’t about me. I’ve just gotten caught up in the middle.

  I don’t know how this is going to turn out, only that I am most likely about to have to sell my soul to the devil. Any minute now, Roy is going to take those stairs light-footed and two at a time. He’s going to find me in here. Me and two dead bodies. And when he does, I have to be prepared. I’m going to have to cut a deal.

  I will have to marry him and have his babies.

  Assuming he’ll have me.

  Whatever it takes.

  I consider my options. I consider all the ways I could get rid of him. I could put in a 9-1-1 call about kids fighting down at the beach. I could mention teenagers vandalizing the courthouse. Or suggest a welfare check way out on the outskirts of town. I could do a number of things—or I could simply face the music and let the chips fall where they may.

  As I contemplate this, my eyes shift toward the bed. I can’t help noticing that Ashley looks good naked, even dead. I know it’s a weird thing to think at a time like this, but this is how women are. Everything is a comparison. Standards of beauty are drilled into us at an early age, and that conditioning is hard to escape. Or maybe it’s just the things that seem forbidden tend to look the best.

  I take it my brother knew a thing or two about that.

  The problem is, looking at Ashley forces me to look at him, and I can’t bear it. Not again. I saw his face, or what was left of it, and once was enough. I half expect him to leap up, to tell me this is all a joke, a delicious prank that we’ll recant over Thanksgiving dinner for years to come. Everyone will laugh. Sometimes even me.

  Please, I plead with God. With the universe. Don’t let this be real.

  Johnny has always been the strong one. The older, protective brother. The one with all the answers. And now, he isn’t saying anything, when there’s a whole lot I need him to say.

  For one, how did this happen?

  Not in a trillion years did I ever see this coming.

  But also, how did I not see it?

  The question reminds me of a conversation I had with Cole once after we’d made love in this very bed. It was just a few days after Ashley arrived, a day or two after the Watermelon Festival. Casually, I’d asked if he had any ideas on how I might go about getting rid of her.

  “I don’t know,” he told me. Knowing him, he probably referenced The Art of War or some other book, but if so, I can’t recall. I only remember what he said exactly as it applied to my situation. He stroked my hair and said, “Stick your head up and get it cut off, and you serve as a cautionary example. People will be terrified of the result and will cower in fear. You have to keep cool and resist intelligently.”

  “What does that even mean?” I asked.

  “It means that every bit of resistance in the system drags it and slows it down. Eventually, with enough resistance, it overheats and grinds to a stop. That is the time for action. That is the time to make your move.”

  I looked at him like he’d lost his mind, like he might as well have been speaking Romanian. “What are you talking about?”

  He studied me closely before he answered in that keen way of his. It probably seemed to him like I wasn’t all that interested, but I couldn’t have been more riveted. With a charming, easy smile, he whispered, “Subvert. Evade. Survive.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been reading too much dystopia.”

  “Civilization is not a very good paint job,” he said with a shake of his head. “Three days without food and it will flake off. We are predators, Ruth, and we will hunt. Prey is anyone, or anything, who can't defend themselves. Dystopian literature barely touches exactly how bad it can get.”

  It may seem like what I’m saying, like our conversation, has nothing to do with finding my brother and Ashley Parker bludgeoned to death.

  But, I assure you, it has every bit to do with it.

  Unfortunately, unpacking that isn’t my most pressing issue right now.

  Now, I have to figure out how I’m going to keep people out of this room. Outside of hanging crime scene tape, I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to accomplish that seeing as more than half the town is about to descend down on this house, and there’s nothing like a locked door to make nosey people want to open it and peek inside.

  You wouldn’t think any of them would want to see this.

  You’d be surprised.

  Although, before any of that happens, I have to find Davis.

  My guess? He’s wandering around here somewhere, all zombie-like, his clothes covered in blood. God, I hope he’s smarter than that.

  The thought conjures a memory of us as kids. We’d rush home from school and sneak up to this room to watch recaps of the OJ Simpson trial on the old big box televi
sion that used to sit in the corner.

  I doubt Mama and Daddy had any idea that’s what we were doing, because if they had, they never would have allowed it.

  It makes me wonder if Davis learned anything.

  Me, I learned this is a room of many uses.

  It could hold the secrets of secrets.

  Although, I suppose you always get caught, one way or another. Karma has a way of evening the score, which means I’d better find Davis before Roy or anyone else does. I’ve lost one brother. I’m terrified of what’s going to become of the other.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Ruth

  One thing I’ve figured out, you can’t have better standards for a person than they have for their own self. That is proven when I walk into the kitchen and find Davis sitting at the table with his head in his hands. The kitchen is an absolute disaster. I’d been readying things for the party when I realized that I’d forgotten to pick up my dress at the seamstress. I rushed out the door, drove like a bat out of hell, just to reach her shop as she was locking up.

  She didn’t look thrilled to see me, but she handed over the dress, and she was kind enough to allow me to try it on, even making a slight alteration while I waited. I take note of Davis and begin to clear clutter from one of the counters. It’s pointless, all things considered, but it helps with the nervous energy and it gives me something to do with my hands.

  Meanwhile, Davis doesn’t look up at me, or acknowledge my presence. He sits with a bottle of red in front of him, unopened, and he mumbles. I’m not sure what he’s saying, but it sounds a lot like the Lord’s Prayer.

  His hands tremble. His fingernails are caked in blood. “I didn’t mean to do it, really, I didn’t.”

  “You need to get showered and changed,” I tell him, sliding into full-on big sister mode. “Guests are starting to arrive. And we can’t have them seeing you like this.”

  I don’t mean any of this literally. Obviously, that would be tampering with evidence. I only mean that we need to get him somewhere a little more private, at least until I can figure out what to do, or if that’s what I want to do.

  “Where’s Roy?” I ask. It’s a rhetorical question designed to shake Davis out of his stupor. I glance toward the window, feeling more than a little relieved not to find him in this kitchen.

  If Roy isn’t in here, and he isn’t upstairs, the next most likely place for me to find him is in the parlor, standing over the pool table, weighing his next move. But then, I realize there’s some part of me that suspects that might not be the case and that Davis’s lack of response indicates something far worse than I’d imagined.

  “I didn’t mean it.”

  “It’s okay,” I say softly. “I don’t blame you.”

  “You should.”

  “Davis, listen to me. I need to know if you’ve seen Roy. He texted that he was downstairs.”

  I glance down at the knife on the table in front of him.

  He rubs at his eyes with the palms of his hands. Still, he refuses to look at me. “I think you should leave, Ruth.”

  “I can’t leave. We’re having a party. Like right now.”

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

  “You wouldn’t, Davis. Of course, you wouldn’t.”

  He looks up at me with sharp, intelligent eyes that crease slightly at the corners from years of easy going smiles. He doesn’t look like himself. He doesn’t look like a zombie, either. Quite frankly, he looks like someone capable of murder. “You saw them?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I saw them.”

  “Johnny never liked her.”

  “I don’t know. I guess he liked her well enough.”

  “You!” he shouts. He sits upright in his chair and toys with the knife. “You never liked her.”

  “Davis,” I say, backing away. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Where is Roy?”

  He scoffs, and I realize how much I sound like my mother. His eyes narrow, and when he speaks, he does it in a way that scares me. “What’s it to you?”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you. If anyone is going to handle this situation, it needs to be Roy.”

  “I’m a dead man, Ruth. You should go now.”

  “It’s understandable,” I tell him. “What you’ve done. Anyone would have that reaction—after what you found.”

  He eyes me with a furrowed brow. “I didn’t protect her. Not from Johnny and not from him.”

  “Davis—”

  “This is my fault.” He breaks down in hurried sobs. “It is. All of it, it’s my fault.”

  An uproar of laughter comes from the foyer. Guests chat on the other side of the kitchen door. The noise level tells me they’re increasing in number, and it’s just a matter of time before one of them comes looking for me.

  “What am I going to do, Ruth?” He cries. “Just tell me what to do?”

  Just beyond the top of Davis’s head, I see people congregating in the garden. I want to tell him that I tried that already. That I saw this ending badly a thousand ways to sundown. But I know that won’t help. I know it’s too late to matter. So, I say, “We can fix this,” even though I don’t think we can.

  My lie calms him, albeit only momentarily. “Maybe we should call Mike,” he tells me. “He knows the law. He’ll know what to do.”

  He’s right about this. You should never make a statement to police before you’ve had the chance to talk to your attorney. Police have a job to do and you need to be cooperative, but you don't want to say too much because anything you say will be used against you. “If you’ll tell me where Roy is, I’ll have him get rid of the guests. Then, the rest, we can figure out.”

  “They’ll eat me alive in prison. You have to know that.”

  He’s right about this, too. I know it without a doubt. I also know that my little brother has proven twice recently that he isn’t that good in a fight. It makes me sad for him. If only he’d heeded my warning back when he still had a chance.

  “It’ll all work out,” I lie. “I don’t know how, but it will.”

  “This isn’t Runaway Bride, Ruth. Ashley’s dead.” He slips as he says her name and the sobbing returns.

  “I know,” I answer, speaking under my breath. “I saw.”

  “I should have protected her.”

  I don’t know what he means, and I don’t think to ask because that’s when I hear a commotion coming from the cellar.

  My brother’s eyes grow wider than I’ve ever seen them. “Oh, God. He’s up.”

  “Who? Roy?” My eyes search his.

  This time it’s my eyes that widen. “You locked him in the cellar?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Ruth

  The kitchen doors swing open and Cole comes barreling through. He appears to be every bit as surprised to see me as I am to see him, which makes little sense given that he’s in my house.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask at the same time he says, “Johnny invited me.”

  “You could’ve said no.” I know this is the absolute worst time for an argument. I have much bigger fish to fry, but just seeing his face, I can’t help myself.

  “Where is he?”

  When I don’t offer an immediate response, Cole turns toward the door. “Forget it. I’ll find him.”

  “He’s out,” I say. “On a call.”

  “Great.” He gives me the once over. “In that case, I’ll wait outside.”

  Cole pushes the kitchen door open, giving me one last glance over his shoulder. Suddenly, he pivots on his heel. As he looks from me to Davis, his entire demeanor changes.

  I watch his expression shift as recognition takes hold. He stares at the butcher knife in Davis’s hand, and he realizes he didn’t just walk in on an argument between two siblings.

  With a nod, I say, “You should wait outside.”

  Cole surprises me by sliding a chair out from under the table and taking a seat.
I stand frozen in place, my feet half ready to run, half bolted to the floor as he places his hands on the table and spreads his fingers wide. I know Cole carries a pistol, so the move is generous on his part, and also, in my opinion, stupid.

  I won’t lie. This sort of stunt makes me fall in love with him a little bit. I hate us both for it.

  Cole doesn’t think he’s in danger. But he didn’t see what I saw upstairs. Davis doesn’t just kill people, he resets their faces.

  Another booming sound comes from the cellar.

  His chin juts toward Davis. “Johnny down there?”

  I shake my head.

  My brother tightens his grip on the knife.

  I wonder how quick on the draw Cole is.

  I wonder whether I want him to be quick enough.

  Chapter Forty

  Ruth

  A single light bulb dangles from the ceiling. It sways from side to side like a pendulum, and as it moves, it flickers on and off. It comes to life before dying out again.

  Cole did not draw his weapon. He didn’t have to. Davis volunteered to show us what’s in the cellar. It could be a trap, which is why I move down the old creaky stairs slowly and cautiously, deeply afraid of what I am going to find. Deeply afraid of never seeing the light of day again.

  I don’t think that my brother would hurt me. But fear makes people do stupid things, things they wouldn’t ordinarily do.

  My heart picks up pace, something I didn’t think was possible.

  Davis is two steps behind me. And just behind him, Cole urges us both on.

  When we reach the bottom step, Davis cuts in front of me. He walks over to the wall of bottles. I watch as his fingertips, caked in dried blood, slide over the labels. He stops when he finds one that is familiar. A simple smile passes across his features as he slides it out.